Quinn's Coat
by rukushaka
Summary: '"How much for a lift to Clutha Tertius?" the kid asked. He plucked at the worn coat he was wearing. "I borrowed this from a friend, and I'd like to get it back to him as soon as I can."' A space trader picks up a young passenger for a routine ferry trip. What could go wrong?


**I don't own Star Wars.**

 **A short fic featuring our two favourite boys (eventually) and a skeptical shuttle captain. I'm anticipating maybe four or five chapters, but who knows, it could grow in the telling.**

 **I wrote this as a crossover between Star Wars and an original story of mine. Tsione is my own character; she features in a short story called 12-36, which is being published in _At The Edge_ : an anthology of NZ/Australian Speculative Fiction coming June 2016, published by Paper Road Press. There's more info on my profile if you're interested. :)**

 **Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy reading. I come to serve - or to write, as the case may be.**

* * *

He materialised from the spaceport crowd without so much as a by-your-leave.

"How much for a lift to Clutha Tertius?" the kid asked.

Tsione eyed him for a long moment. Between the ginger stubble, the stained and oversized coat that fell to his ankles, and the excelsium credit chip he was flipping through his fingers, she wasn't quite sure what to make of him.

He looked a few years younger than her, not more than twenty two or so, but he carried himself like a veteran of three galactic wars, still, poised, his gaze swinging this way and that, casually alert. She would have labelled the haircut an affectation of rich youth - it was buzzed short at the sides and back, long on top, a single braid dangling behind one ear - but the travel-stained clothes didn't bear out that hypothesis. Hmm. She spat her caf-cud into a nearby flash bin and took her next breath through her nose, half expecting an expensive waft of _eau de clematis_ ; but he smelled like a muckpond.

"Depends," Tsione said finally, and fought back a grimace at the stench. "How many of you?"

"Just me," said the kid.

"Your folks know you're out here alone?" He looked old enough, but it paid to check. She'd had more than one friend get in trouble with GalSec for ferrying underage passengers.

For a moment the aura of exhaustion surrounding him lifted; the strained lines around his eyes eased, and a flash of something like morbid amusement crossed his face. "Yes."

"I'll need to see some I.D."

He produced his identigram. She glanced over it. Ben Quinn, nineteen, from Coruscant. He was younger than she'd first thought.

"What d'you want to go to Clutha Tertius for, Ben Quinn?"

The humour faded from his eyes. "I'm looking for a friend."

"Any friend at all?"

"One in particular." He plucked at the worn coat he was wearing. "I borrowed this from him, and I'd like to get it back to him as soon as I can."

She shrugged. She'd heard odder reasons for travelling offworld. "I've got room for you. When are you wanting to leave?"

"Today."

Tsione drummed her fingers against her leg. The kid might look and smell like a drunken streetsleeper, but the haircut and the credit chip said otherwise. "Two hundred on departure and another hundred on arrival."

It was moderate enough as berth prices went. She didn't need to charge an exorbitant rate; she had a load of spices already sitting in stasis crates in the cargo hold, and they'd fetch as good a price on Clutha III as anywhere else. They might even fetch a better price than elsewhere, if the luxury market was anything like it had been the last time she'd been there. She'd sold a single space pear for enough credits to feed a family on Theobromine for a month, and there had been more where that one came from.

"Done," Ben Quinn said. "I'll double it if we can leave in the next hour and with no-one else on board."

"You in trouble with GalSec? I'm no smuggler, kid."

It was no skin off her nose, truth be told. She'd dealt with Galactic Security before, on both sides of the fence. She might not be a smuggler, but she had no patience for legalistic brown-nosers making up their monthly quota by harassing women who were old enough to be her grandmother, either.

"I'm not in trouble with GalSec, no."

She grunted. "You're in trouble with someone, though."

The kid stared past her for a moment, his gaze distant, and then he blinked and forced a weak smile. "Yeah. I'm in trouble with my friend if I don't reach him in time - and the company bosses won't be too happy, either."

"Gotcha." Gambling debts or something of the sort, no doubt. She'd had worse. "I'm filling the ship up now. She'll be done in another forty. We can leave on the hour."

He passed his chip over with a bow of thanks. "Your name?"

"Tsione."

"Shin-ay," he repeated, getting the pronunciation right without a pause. "And your ship?"

"Zuflucht."

"And you'll guarantee that there won't be anyone else on board?"

That was one thing she could definitely guarantee. She cast an amused look down his lanky frame. "Only two bunks on board, Ben. Hope you don't mind cramped quarters."

He swallowed. "Lovely."

"It won't be for long. She might be small, but she's fast."

"Oh?"

"Here to Clutha Tertius is the best part of eighty ells. She'll do it in two days without breaking a sweat."

The credit transaction went through without a hitch. She retrieved the chip and passed it back to the boy. He tucked it away in an internal pocket, flashing dirty cream linen as he did so, and hesitated. "I, uh, have some things to see to before we leave - "

"No problem." Tsione waved him off. "Be back here before the hour or I'll head spaceside without you."

He bowed again, turned in a swirl of stained overcoat, and vanished into the stream of spaceport denizens.


End file.
